The Embassy, the White House & the Bigots: Tears For Jerusalem.

Matthew 23:37

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. . . .”

There’s lots that’s wrong about moving the U. S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, not least the trail of dead Palestinians.

Here I’ll focus on what might seem a sideshow, but is actually crucial to the whole project: the administration’s deadly alliance with so-called “Christian Zionists,” who were the move’s loudest promoters, and who have plenty of religious bigotry to spare.

Jeffress & friend. There’s an unconfirmed rumor that the friend was asking, “Is it okay if I say, ‘just grab ’em by the Bible?'”

Here I find myself again in unusual company, agreeing with Mitt Romney, who pointed up & condemned this:

NBC News: “Former Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney lashed out at the decision to have a controversial evangelical leader give a blessing at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem Monday, calling him a “religious bigot.”

The Senate candidate from Utah criticized the inclusion of the Rev. Robert Jeffress — the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas who is also an an adviser to President Donald Trump. The president recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital last year.

“Robert Jeffress says, ‘You can’t be saved by being a Jew,’ and ‘Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell,’” Romney wrote in a tweet. “He’s said the same about Islam. Such a religious bigot should not be giving the prayer that opens the United States Embassy in Jerusalem.”

Romney is Mormon.”

Jeffress denied he was a bigot, but added that he believed Mormonism was “wrong,” and said the Southern Baptist Convention had designated it a “cult.”

“Mormonism has never been considered a part of historic Christianity. People may disagree with that view, but it’s not a view unique to me,” he said in an interview with NBC News.

COMMENT: Jeffress is, sadly, right that religious bigotry is not unique to him: lots of people share it. But there’s a difference between murderous bigotry and dissent: after all, I happen to think there’s stuff that’s both nutty and dangerous in Mormon doctrine & theology; I also have serious doubts about various tenets in Islam, and others in some Jewish subgroups. (And did I mention my quarrels with much of so-called “Christianity”?) Jeffress’s theology represents some of the worst of all (Speaking of “heresies from the pit of hell . . .”) and seeing him put by the White House front and center in a U.S. embassy anywhere, and especially in such a critical and hazardous spot, is way beyond belief.

Except that it’s true.

And You go, Mitt.

The death toll mounts in protests against the embassy move.

PS from the BBC:

Mr Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, who are both senior White House advisers, joined US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan for the ceremony.

After Ivanka Trump had unveiled the seal of the embassy, Mr Kushner said in his address: “When President Trump makes a promise he keeps it… We have shown the world that the US can be trusted. We stand with our friends and allies.”. . .

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “What a glorious day. Remember this moment. This is history. President Trump, by recognising history, you have made history. All of us are deeply grateful.”

A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday: “With this step, the US administration has cancelled its role in the peace process and has insulted the world, the Palestinian people and the Arab and the Islamic nation and it has created incitement and instability.”

Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit said it was “shameful to see countries participating with the US and Israel in celebrating the former’s embassy move to occupied Jerusalem in a clear and grave violation of international law”.

2 thoughts on “The Embassy, the White House & the Bigots: Tears For Jerusalem.”

Christian Zionists and some Evangelicals look a lot like the American form of the Taliban. That segment of the population has become what we said we most hated.

Thanks for mentioning the Christian Zionists in your blog. That Israel takes up the banner that “Might Makes Right” and then creates a modern day Killing Machine (called Defense Forces) to shoot people under their care in their own backyard is very scary indeed. Even scarier is how the blockade of Gaza looks a lot like what happened in Poland during WW2 where the Warsaw Ghetto’s Jewish inhabitants were starved into submission before they were shipped off to die in death camps.

It is ironic that Germany and England are both condemning these attacks on unarmed Palestinians by heavily armed Israelis.

Who would have thunk it 75 years ago?

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2 thoughts on “The Embassy, the White House & the Bigots: Tears For Jerusalem.”

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